Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson has a history of speaking his mind over the past few years, and not caring what you may think about it. It is hard to see how this guy used to be a Republican when you hear his opinions on things, but that really is the point. The GOP has turned into a political arm of corporate and fundamentalist Christian America, and has left reasonable people in the dust.
Simpson touched on social issues like abortion, economic equality, gay rights, and the hypocrisy of the modern GOP being the morality police while they are “diddling their secretary.”
I think the class warfare thing is going to get worse and worse, the income inequality worse and worse. This business of the minimum wage, ‘Oh, you can’t afford $15.’ Well, then don’t publish your quarterly reports saying you made a billion and a half. Give me a break.
Hypocrisy is the original sin. It’s the guy who’s checking your moral values, like to ask for Jesus, you know — while they’re diddling their secretary. That’s not my idea of family values.
If Alan Simpson was not already retired from public service, he would have been voted out easily by the fresh crop of Republican idiots for the sin of not hating people enough, and saying things that make sense, and actually knowing factual things.
Watch Simpson’s comments regarding the current state of the Republican party, and their epic take down of it, below:
Featured image via Youtube screen capture
Truly honest words. Refreshing to see a republican speak honestly from the heart.
This is a rare breed these days , an honest straight talking Republican, the last like this was President Dwight David Eisenhower , his last words to the people of America, “Beware of the Military Industrial Complex. they now own most of Congress. bought and paid for.!!!
He’s wrong about this but he sure was right about Anita Hill.
What did he get wrong, Otto?
That inequality matters and minimum wage increases are good policy.
??So you are saying inequality does not matter? What?
It’s not something for the government to manage.
How should it be managed? By individuals? Really? Good luck with that.
It shouldn’t be managed, it’s the byproduct of a free society.
Well then, there you have it. As long as it is not YOU then.
I love the way your response has stood for the closing word, through the three ensuing days and up until the final comment from Otto. I might have paid more attention to your response and saved all my words! Still, it’s worth a try, I think. Who knows, there might be some reader here who takes note and is moved to think it over…maybe…
If you notice my response was put in several days prior and I did not even see the conversation after Thatmanstu’s remark above. How or why it was positioned where it is in the conversation is puzzling. It was to Otto’s comment also 3 days earlier.
Wow, how do you function being so clueless?
It’s a treat to have an alternative voice heard on a thread like this! Thanks! While you’re here, please go on to list the other “byproducts of a free society”. Or should we just assume that any negatives are just the “byproducts” of the positives? If that be the case, should we simply learn to live with all the negatives because of the positives? Or, as some suggest, should we develop some sort of moderating agent that might preserve the positives, while minimizing the negatives. Is this not possible in a “free society”? Can we not work towards the best conditions for all. if we are indeed free? It seems that any force working against any of us reduces our freedom “as a society”? You seem to be so clear on this, it would be good of you to explain. Specifically you say that “inequality does not matter and minimum wages should not be mandated in a free society”. I guess my basic question is this, if we are indeed a free society, which you seem to believe we are, then why should we not strive to reduce inequality? Who has the power to restrict this freedom? Why, in our freedom, should we not work towards greater equality? The minimum wage issue is moot. We have had a minimum wage for many years, and it has apparently had little impact on either our freedom or our equality. We remain just as free to argue for it, and the gap between the lowest income and the highest has continued to grow. So, Otto, with your apparent assuredness, please elaborate on your view that a free society does not manage any part of itself. I hope there is no confusion between a “free society” and a “free market”. At its most basic level, slaves are accepted in “a free market”, within the rules of supply and demand, and slavery is not acceptable within “a free society”,, or is it in your view? Thanks for clarifying this…
We shouldn’t raise the minimum wage because doing so hurts low skill workers.
Surely you have a supporting statement at hand. Given that we have had “a minimum wage” in place over the last fifty years, there should be lots of documentation as to how this has “hurt low skilled workers”. Can you find it?
See “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research” by Neumark and Wascher.
OK, fair enough. We could offer competing research papers. However, let’s look at it from another angle from which I have seen no research, have you? Suppose there had been no minimum wage, or that we abandoned it now. What do you think would happen? With the ‘freedom” you seek, my guess is that employers would hire anyone willing to work for whatever wage they were willing to accept. Of course the employer sees that wage only as an expense counted against his income. The employee sees the same wage as a necessity for food and shelter. So, with no limit on labor expenses or his own income, the employer is about as free as he can be. However, the worker has no freedom whatever, he accepts what employers see as required for making more money, with no freedom to choose between survival and starvation. So, you’re right, there is no freedom in a society bound by some rules. But surely maintaining a working class with incomes needed for survival is not a bad thing, or is it? Are you sure you would take away all the “rules” we have evolved, or just those which do not affect you directly.. and which might those be? If you so easily give up the freedom of the lowest earners who are at the fringes of survival, how can you so fervently protect the freedom of the wealthy to amass even more? Should we accept “survival of the fittest” as the basis for a society, or seek something more?
Most employers pay most employees above the minimum wage. Getting rid of it wouldn’t mean workers choosing between “survival and starvation”.
You’re changing the subject. We were discussing the impact of a minimum wage on those earning it. Yes, those making a salary above it may or may not be impacted, although one suspects with no “floor” all wages would trend lower. You do not address the question of what the workers at the lowest levels might have to accept. What we can be pretty sure of is that profits at the top would be higher if wages were driven down, instead of up.
However, I think in the meantime jewelnabq01 reached the proper conclusion, “Well then, there you have it. As long as it is not YOU then.”
I’m not changing the subject. Obviously having no floor will not affect all wages, as shown by the fact that most people make above the minimum wage. You should go read an introductory economics textbook.
Actually, if the subject is the pros and cons of a minimum wage, than arguing that “Most workers are being paid above that level”, is leading off the point, isn’t it? However, are you sure having no floor would not affect wages generally. I suspect that somewhere in that economics book you rely on there is a paragraph or two about “what the market will bear”, and “negotiating based on current conditions and comparisons”. An employer is of necessity going to look at the market and determine what he must pay to attract good employees. Anyone seeking work is going to look at the same factors when considering how much his labor should be worth. The two will negotiate within these limits and reach agreement, or not. The applicant will be able to say, “Look, the minimum is …whatever.. surely I am worth more than that!” And the employer will say, “I see no reason to give you that much more than all the other applicants who will work for less.”…and that is the basis of the minimum wage argument. As long as there are applicants willing to work for less, wages will be driven down, at any level. Unless one has unique skills to offer, he can only negotiate against those who will work for less. Guess who the employer will hire, his nephew, or one of those willing to work for less. Your book will support the argument that an employer should pay no more than he needs to, and I will agree. But, there is that caveat, “no more than he needs to”. At all levels, market conditions apply and that means supply vs. demand. There will never be a huge supply of those who can do brain surgery, especially if they choose to go into politics instead, and they can demand higher wages accordingly. There will always be too many unskilled workers to compete for the millions of jobs that do not require higher skills. They need the work more than the employer needs them, so they accept what is offered. This will pertain until we see an unemployment rate of zero. So, the competition for a job becomes, “I will show up every day for work and not steal stuff!”. The vast majority of lowest paid workers have these qualifications, so we run around 4-5% unemployment, and wages are kept low… unless, a floor is established and workers earn enough to rent and buy the stuff that keeps the businesses in business. Show me where your economics book says otherwise. Meanwhile, my ethics book has a paragraph or more about how those who “have” are generally unconcerned about those who “have not”. If you care to read such ideas, you can start with the Bible, although there are plenty of contemporary works on the same topic. Let’s be clear, I do not expect you, or anyone, to suddenly care about their fellow man based on an economics text, but you must not argue that any economics text takes into account any concerns about common decency or a willingness to walk in the other guys shoes for a mile. For my part, I crassly anticipate that if a guy is earning more money, he is more apt to buy stuff that will lead to demand that will lead to my investments being worth more. He will rent my apartment, buy my used car, and best of all, not cost me more in taxes when he falls ill or shows up at a food kitchen, or needs food stamps because his 38 hour week doesn’t pay enough to make ends meet.
I’ve explained repeatedly why not having a floor wouldn’t produce the results you imagine. Given that the evidence consistently shows raising the minimum wage hurts low skill workers, I don’t see why you think doing so is “caring” and “decency”.
I’ve pointed out between those repetitions that the data is not conclusive. I think the better takeaway on the issue is, as some data indicates, that a higher minimum will hurt some low earners, the ones not hired, or laid off, but help those who keep their jobs and earn the higher wage. The latter seem to be the majority. However, as we have seen over time, the “shock’ of the wage increase is absorbed over time and new positions are opened as the increased earnings generally lead to more demand, etc.. It has become recognized as the opposite of the widely discredited “trickle down” and is the new “trickle up” theory. We have a consumer based economy. We need consumers to buy. They are the job creators when they are able to activate the demand side of supply and demand. By the way, if you read my last post through, you will note I do not depend on caring and decency. While it is nice to see when it happens, my final word was this, “For my part, I crassly anticipate that if a guy is earning more money, he is more apt to buy stuff that will lead to demand that will lead to my investments being worth more. He will rent my apartment, buy my used car, and best of all, not cost me more in taxes when he falls ill or shows up at a food kitchen, or needs food stamps because his 38 hour week doesn’t pay enough to make ends meet.” That is purely self serving logic. It just so happens that it might also been seen as caring and decent, but the benefits of the reality make it appealing on both counts.
It is conclusive.
I’m so glad you’re comfortable with whatever paper that satisfies you. I envy your confidence, but wonder if you ever bother to read beyond a first paragraph…
If not, it is a very reliable way to avoid confronting an argument, and you do it very well. I suspect the fact that you find my writing “incoherent” is an excuse for not reading more than 140 characters at a time. This apparent inability to study a thing in depth makes me feel I cannot learn any more from you. Never mind, it was tiresome while it lasted! Thanks!
Your statement doesn’t answer the question. The fact that most people make above the minimum wage right now in no way has anything to do with the fact that if there were no minimum wage in place wages would most likely drop like a stone. One does not necessarily have any direct correlation to the other.
The fact that most wages don’t “drop like a stone” to the minimum wage indicates they won’d drop if there were no minimum wage.
In nearly every instance where there isn’t some type of regulation wages either drop or stagnate.
It’s a fact wages don’t drop to the minimum wage.
Free societies will never be equal. You are free to voluntarily reduce inequality all you want. Nothing prevents you from giving your money away. Much of your comment is incoherent.
I will try to explain my comments more coherently, if you will try to explain yours. You write about an individual’s freedom to give money away. That is not at all the same as what we might do as members of a free society. Individuals within a free society may choose to act on behalf of the society, or simply within their own selfish interests. Societies exist for the protection and betterment of their members. Yes, as members of a larger group we inevitably sacrifice some “freedom” with a thought to making things better for all. Happily, we live in a society which allows you to argue for the individual, while many of us argue for the whole. Whatever freedom I give up by participating in this society is miniscule compared to the benefits I, and you, receive. If all citizens were willing to give their money away, “freely”, (without taxation, that is), to build the infrastructure and the institutions and protections that we enjoy, it would be very beautiful indeed….but still not “free” for those able to donate the money. Your turn. What sort of society would you design that would be either more “free” or more desirable?
Why don’t you want to give some of your money away? I thought you wanted to reduce inequality.
By the way, I go on at length, (coherently or not), because I wish to seize the rare opportunity of debating a voice from the Right, an opportunity too rarely presented on these pages. My assumption is that our exchange will be read by others and perhaps serve to broaden the discussion, across the usual lines.
It is the product of a manipulated system .
Otto, Cranston is a wise man and you are wrong on both points. As a Democrat, I appreciate the days of an opposition party to whom compromise was still in the dictionary.
Allan Simpson has always been a clear eyed realist. Never could figure out why he was a Republican.
Otto trolling another site? lol
I miss the days when Alan Simpson was the kind of Republican I disagreed with. lol
Loved hearing what Simpson had to say…more Americans need to hear this kind of conversation from Republicans being truthful.
He wisely points out hat the government says the consumer will help us make a recovery. However-if the consumer has too little money because of higher prices and a wage from the 1990’s-the recovery will not happen.